A Shop of Ideas: Life at A Comic Shop

Newsarama Note - today, we proudly debut "Shop of Ideas" a retailing chronicle about A Comic Shop, an Orlando, FL based comic shop noted for its creative marketing (not to mention great sales).
Hey fandom, my name is Aaron Haaland, co-owner of A Comic Shop. Yes, that’s really the name—I didn’t come up with the idea, I just said it succinctly.
We’ve been voted best comic shop in Orlando two years running.

When I decided to start my comic shop two and a half years ago, I was
on a mission to connect with fellow fans and passionately share my love
of comics with the world (or at least the greater Orlando area). Our
goal was to market and sell comics as creatively as the people creating
them, and to unite current fans and creators with awesome events. Most
importantly, we wanted to discard all the old clichés associated with
comic stores so that we could welcome new people to the comic
experience. A Comic Shop focuses on comics only
as entertainment and completely rejects the ideas of collecting for
investment. People seek out new entertainment all the time, but the
collecting stigma associated with comic books alienates most people
from viewing comics as an entertainment medium. Reading a comic is way
more fun than reading a price guide. You want an investment from
collecting? Play the stock market.
Since we began, our sales have more than doubled and continue to grow –
people want this kind of store. I want to encourage others to help
revitalize this industry by showing everyone how and what we’ve done. I
hope this column will inspire other comic shops, fans, and creators to
get involved in the comics community. This grassroots movement will
drive promotion that people will rally behind. As proof there will be
video of our events, interviews with creators, and some how-to/behind
the curtain stuff to show you how we do.
I want to improve this industry and help other local comic shops and comic fans have more fun.
Why should anyone listen to me? To answer that question I’ve made the
first column a “greatest hits” of A Comic Shop. Here are some examples
of what we’ve done:

GIRLS OF A COMIC SHOP
Our store is located across the street from Full Sail University, one
of the largest new media schools in the US. My business partner, Jason,
teaches film there. This puts us at the epicenter of a lot of skilled,
creative people – overwhelmingly male. With this in mind, we started
Girls of A Comic Shop, glamour photography of local models in the shop.
This blew up on the web with many people criticizing us for using sex
to sell comics (including Jim Valentino, who then published Bomb Queen
through his Shadowline imprint). Fangirl Model, Ruby Rocket, became our
poster girl posing in her own comic accurate costumes, like
Thrillkiller Batgirl.

The program fully realized its potential when Ruby posed for a set
promoting the reprinting of Amanda Connor's the Pro. We used the photos
and a custom-made statue of the PRO (with Amanda Connor’s permission),
to sell hundreds of copies of the reprinting. It sold as if it were new
because to the people we were marketing it to, it was new! Admittedly, this program got off to a shaky start, but when promoting the right kind of comic (The PRO) it worked great!
You want video of the photo shoots? Check here and here.
CREATOR SIGNINGS

One of the best things about being a comic fan is meeting comic
creators. A Comic Shop promotes a new comic or graphic novel by having
a release party, much like a CD or movie would, with the creator as the
guest of honor. I feel store signings better promote a creator’s work
in a more casual and personal way than conventions. Expect a whole
column in the near future on the creators we’ve had, how we promoted
them, and the outcomes. Today, I’ll mention Ethan Van Shiver and the Sinestro Corps one-shot release.
At the time Ethan wasn’t interested in doing another local store
signing, I personally guaranteed an amazing turn out, and he agreed.
I’m sure I sounded Guy-Gardner-level cocky to him, but I was willing to
go balls to the wall promoting this event. I bought a .com to promote
the signing. I got fans involved in promotion by offering art pages
from Green Lantern: Rebirth
as prizes. Next, we got 5,000 postcard flyers about the event out in
the local area. We even had a guy in a Green Lantern suit out by the
side of the road. The signing was a crazy success; we sold hundreds of
copies of his book that day. Even the friends and roommates of comic
fans got caught up in the excitement and got into the book. Ethan was
pleased with the turnout and said it was the biggest he’d had at a
store signing.
Z.E.D. PROGRAM

Z.E.D. stands for Zombie Emergency Defense. It spawned from my love of The Walking Dead
and my desire to connect non-comic fans to what I feel is the best
zombie story ever. We train people to defend themselves against a
zombie apocalypse and survive the desolate world left behind. From the
start this program sparked huge interest, and the program evolved into
its own entity with its own manager. We’ve rented out a local gun range
for firearms training against custom zombie targets. We also run
missions at a local laser combat gaming facility, complete with zombie
actors wearing sensors on their heads.
Last October 30th we had a Zombie Dance at a popular downtown nightclub
and filled the place to maximum occupancy at 300 people in zombie
make-up. The dance was a blast and introduced people to Z.E.D. and The Walking Dead
comic. It also raised money for the training needed to ensure the
survival of the human race. Currently we are working on formalizing
membership and helping fans start other Z.E.D. chapters around the
country. This program gets more new comic fans than any other single
thing we do. Horror movie buffs try The Walking Dead, and then
get involved with either more horror comics like stuff by Steve Niles
or Rick Remender, or more Robert Kirkman comics like Invincible and Marvel Zombies, which leads them to the capes stuff.
Video here, and the ZED web page here and MySpace over here.

MARVEL CIVIL WAR - REGISTRATION PROTEST
Newsarama readers may remember this from Joe Quesada’s “Joe Friday’s”.
As Marvel Comics’ characters fought amongst each other over who
supported registration and who was against it, we rallied fans to
become a part of the story. Outside the shop we organized a real life
superhero registration protest. To many people driving by the event
looked like a pro and anti Iraq war demonstration… but with super hero
costumes. We got plenty of local news coverage, and combined with the
national news Marvel was making with Civil War,
it resulted in a ton of new and returning readers. This was proof to us
that there’s an easy way to get non-comic readers into comics—even if
it’s a little crazy.
Video here.

SECRET INVASION/ILLEGAL ALIEN PROTEST
After the Civil War protest was so well received, we decided to step it up a notch. Luckily, Marvel felt the same way and gave us Secret Invasion!
Riffing off the paranoia of “Who do you trust?” we had an illegal alien
protest. We sent out press releases stating that we’ve been invaded by
illegal aliens, and we weren’t going to be silent about it anymore.
Illegal immigration is a hot button issue here in Florida, so this got
people’s attention. We used the controversy to get press and the public
to check us out, but at the protest itself the signs were clearly anti
space aliens. Again we had picketing on both side of the issue, some
with Skrull make-up. The protest got the blessing of both Bendis and
Quesada, and after the event Joey Q said A Comic Shop is “one of the
most creative marketers on the retail side of comics”.
Video here, and websites here and here.

OPERATION SEQUENTIAL ART
Operation Sequential Art is the brain-child of my business partner,
Jason who was unable to get comics when he was overseas in the
military. Now in a position to help other soldiers, he started this
charitable program which sends donated comics to troops abroad. I see
it as comic fans helping fight the war on boredom—regardless of their
politics. The project started with Jason sending the shop’s own
overstock and back issues to soldiers who posted on anysoldier.com
looking for new reading material. We received local press coverage when
the mother of a soldier who got a package called The Orlando Sentinel.
Soon, we were running out of our own inventory, so Jason gave the
program a name and held a donation drive. This received tons of press
including radio and television spots. Chuck Dixon was at the shop
signing comics, and by the end of the day 15,000 comics had been
donated. We organized a follow-up drive and store signing with Billy
Tucci on November 5th, close to Veteran’s Day and the release day of
Tucci’s Sgt. Rock #1. Other comic shops have begun joining us in this effort.
Website here.
NEAR FUTURE ENDEVORS
With great books like The Walking Dead and Marvel Zombies,
October was our Z.E.D. month. There was a Z.E.D. presence at local
horror convention, Spooky Empire, where we put on live zombie take down
demonstrations, with techniques learned from The Walking Dead. Then on October 30th we held Zombie Dance with a Marvel Zombie
themed costume contest! Look for the next “Shop of Ideas” for what the
hell happened and how you can make it happen in your town. This is
something a group of comic fans can do themselves even without a comic
shop.
In November, instead of just having a sale on Black Friday this year,
we’re turning it into an event with live music! But, the real big fun
for the season is our December 5th “Last Christmas Party” with Rick
Remender, the artist of Image’s The Last Christmas! Remender is an awesome up and coming writer/artist. He’s about to have the biggest release of his career, Dark Reign’s Punisher #1!
I know firsthand that the guy likes being the life of a party, so I
expect this to get out of hand! We’re planning Pictionary (which Rick
should dominate at), dice games, and free beer. We’ll have bail money
in our savings account…
A Comic Shop is located at 114 S Semoran Blvd Winter Park, FL 32792 (407) 332-9636